Over the last few weeks, I’ve had the great pleasure of communicating with Fr. Michael Rodriguez via both email and telephone.
I let him know that a number of you have mentioned him in your comments, wondering how he is doing.
Well, I can report that all in all, he is doing well, and I am certain that he would appreciate your continued prayers.
Two more things:
First, Fr. Rodriguez recently wrote:
I would like to find the EXACT source for some quotations. Perhaps you or one of the readers of your blog have better “references for Tradition” at your fingertips.
The three quotes below are found in different places on the internet, but I would like to know the EXACT reference / source for each of them. Do you happen to know? Are you able to find out?
“Teach nothing new, but implant in the hearts of everyone those things which the fathers of venerable memory taught with a uniform preaching … Whence, we preach nothing except what we have received from our forefathers. In all things, therefore, both in the rule of faith in the observance of discipline, let the pattern of antiquity be observed.” – Pope St. Leo the Great
“It behooves us unanimously and inviolably to observe the ecclesiastical traditions, whether codified or simply retained by the customary practice of the Church.” – St. Peter Canisius
“The true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries nor innovators, but men of tradition.” – Pope St. Pius X
If anyone can provide the exact reference for these quotes, please leave it in the combox and I’ll pass it along.
Secondly, please forgive me for being coy here; I assure you, it’s deliberate:
In the next couple of weeks, Fr. Rodriguez and I will have some exciting news to share. (No, not about contributing to the blog.)
Stay tuned…
How exciting to know you are planning something with this saintly priest!
May God bless him for all that he has suffered in recent times.
——–
Ad maiorem Dei Gloriam!
I live in Houston, Texas and would be delighted if he were my local parish priest…
Thank you so much, Louie, for putting up this request. I, like others, will try to track them down in my very amateur fashion…but most important is the news that Father Rodriguez is well and busy. He will be one of our true shepherds in the coming devastation.
The St Pius X quote is from “Notre Charge Apostolique” (Our Apostolic Mandate):
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius10/p10notre.htm
–
“Let them [the clergy] not borrow from the Rhetoric of the worst enemies of the Church and of the people, the high-flown phrases, full of promises; which are as high-sounding as unattainable. Let them be convinced that the social question and social science did not arise only yesterday; that the Church and the State, at all times and in happy concert, have raised up fruitful organizations to this end; that the Church, which has never betrayed the happiness of the people by consenting to dubious alliances, does not have to free herself from the past; that all that is needed is to take up again, with the help of the true workers for a social restoration, the organisms which the Revolution shattered, and to adapt them, in the same Christian spirit that inspired them, to the new environment arising from the material development of today’s society.
–
Indeed, the true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries, nor innovators: they are traditionalists.”
The first quote appears to come from Letter 129 of Pope St. Leo the Great, of which the following is an extract:
“And you must so diligently exhort the laity and clergy and all the brotherhood to advance in the Faith as to show that you teach nothing new but instil into all men’s breasts those things, which the Fathers of revered memory have with harmony of statement taught, and with which in all things our epistle agrees. And this must be shown not only by your words but also by the actually reading aloud of previous statements, that God’s people may know that what the Fathers received from their predecessors and handed on to their descendants, is still instilled into them in the present day. And to this end, when the statements of the aforesaid priests have first been read, then lastly let my writings also be recited, that the ears of the faithful may attest that we preach nothing else than what we received from our forefathers. And because their understandings are but little practised in discerning these things, let them at least learn from the letters of the Fathers, how ancient this evil is, which is now condemned by us in Nestorius as well as in Eutyches, who have both been ashamed to preach the gospel of Christ according to the Lord’s own teaching.
This is a link to the letter:
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3604129.htm
Sorry, the extract continues:
“Accordingly, both in the rule of Faith and in the observance of discipline, let the standard of antiquity be maintained throughout…”.
The quotation from Peter Canisius can be found in his Summary of Christian Doctrine. Page 90 in the following link: https://archive.org/details/ASumOfChristianDoctrine Canisius seems to have a general treatment of Catholic tradition in this section of the book.
Patt, I also live in Houston (west Houston to be exact). Nice to meet a fellow Houstonian! Where do you go for Mass?
The quotation from Pope St Pius X is from a letter to the French Bishops in 1910, Our Apostolic Mandate: http://www.fisheaters.com/apostolicmandate.html
We love you Father Michael! Please keep on fighting the good fight of faith, bringing light to the darkness of our time. Glad Louie and Fr. Michael communicate, we need all of the support, community and fellowships we can get in these crazy times.
God bless~
Can’t wait to hear what exciting news you and Father Rodriguez have to share! He is a wonderful priest!
And to think Fr. Robert Barron is now Bishop-elect instead of Fr. Michael Rodriguez
the trend is becoming all to obvious.